Search results for: high throughput screening.
Commenced in January 2007
Frequency: Monthly
Edition: International
Paper Count: 6034

Search results for: high throughput screening.

5914 Perceptions of Health Status and Lifestyle Health Behaviors of Poor People in Mauritius

Authors: Smita S. D. Goorah, Melisha Panchoo

Abstract:

In Mauritius, much emphasis is put on measures to combat the high prevalence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Health promotion campaigns for the adoption of healthy behaviors and screening programs are done regularly by local authorities and NCD surveys are carried out at intervals. However, the health behaviors of the poor have not been investigated so far. This study aims to give an insight on the perceptions of health status and lifestyle health behaviors of poor people in Mauritius. A crosssectional study among 83 persons benefiting from social aid in a selected urban district was carried out. Results showed that 51.8% of respondents perceived that they had good health status. 57.8% had no known NCD whilst 25.3% had hypertension, followed by diabetes (16.9%), asthma (9.6%) and heart disease (7.2%).They had low smoking (10.8%) and alcohol consumption (6.0%) as well as high physical activity prevalence (54.2%). These results were significantly different from the NCD survey carried out in the general population. Consumption of vegetables in the study was high. Overweight and obesity trends were however similar to the NCD survey report 2009. These findings contrast with other international studies showing poor people having poor perceptions of health status and unhealthy behavioral choices. Whether these positive health behaviors of poor people in Mauritius arise out of choice or whether it is because the alternative behavior is too costly remains to be investigated further.

Keywords: Health behavior, non-communicable diseases, poor people.

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5913 Computational Methods in Official Statistics with an Example on Calculating and Predicting Diabetes Mellitus [DM] Prevalence in Different Age Groups within Australia in Future Years, in Light of the Aging Population

Authors: D. Hilton

Abstract:

An analysis of the Australian Diabetes Screening Study estimated undiagnosed diabetes mellitus [DM] prevalence in a high risk general practice based cohort. DM prevalence varied from 9.4% to 18.1% depending upon the diagnostic criteria utilised with age being a highly significant risk factor. Utilising the gold standard oral glucose tolerance test, the prevalence of DM was 22-23% in those aged >= 70 years and <15% in those aged 40-59 years. Opportunistic screening in Australian general practice potentially can identify many persons with undiagnosed type 2 DM. An Australian Bureau of Statistics document published three years ago, reported the highest rate of DM in men aged 65-74 years [19%] whereas the rate for women was highest in those over 75 years [13%]. If you consider that the Australian Bureau of Statistics report in 2007 found that 13% of the population was over 65 years of age and that this will increase to 23-25% by 2056 with a further projected increase to 25-28% by 2101, obviously this information has to be factored into the equation when age related diabetes prevalence predictions are calculated. This 10-15% proportional increase of elderly persons within the population demographics has dramatic implications for the estimated number of elderly persons with DM in these age groupings. Computational methodology showing the age related demographic changes reported in these official statistical documents will be done showing estimates for 2056 and 2101 for different age groups. This has relevance for future diabetes prevalence rates and shows that along with many countries worldwide Australia is facing an increasing pandemic. In contrast Japan is expected to have a decrease in the next twenty years in the number of persons with diabetes.

Keywords: Epidemiological methods, aging, prevalence.

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5912 Synthesis of Analogue to Camptothecine

Authors: Abdulkareem Hamid, Adam Daïch

Abstract:

Camptothecin (CPT) is a cytotoxic quinoline alkaloid, which inhibits the DNA enzyme topoisomerase I (topo I). It was discovered in 1966 by M. E. Wall and M. C. Wani in systematic screening of natural products for anticancer drugs. It was isolated from the bark and stem of Camptotheca acuminata (Camptotheca, Happy tree), a tree native in China. CPT showed remarkable anticancer activity in preliminary clinical trials but also low solubility and (high) adverse drug reaction. Because of these disadvantages synthetic and medicinal chemists have developed numerous syntheses of Camptothecine [1][2][3] and various derivatives to increase the benefits of the chemical, with good results. In our method CPT analogues has be six steps starting from available material DL Malic acid.

Keywords: Camptothecine, synthesis, analogue.

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5911 Cross Layer Optimization for Fairness Balancing Based on Adaptively Weighted Utility Functions in OFDMA Systems

Authors: Jianwei Wang, Timo Korhonen, Yuping Zhao

Abstract:

Cross layer optimization based on utility functions has been recently studied extensively, meanwhile, numerous types of utility functions have been examined in the corresponding literature. However, a major drawback is that most utility functions take a fixed mathematical form or are based on simple combining, which can not fully exploit available information. In this paper, we formulate a framework of cross layer optimization based on Adaptively Weighted Utility Functions (AWUF) for fairness balancing in OFDMA networks. Under this framework, a two-step allocation algorithm is provided as a sub-optimal solution, whose control parameters can be updated in real-time to accommodate instantaneous QoS constrains. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm achieves high throughput while balancing the fairness among multiple users.

Keywords: OFDMA, Fairness, AWUF, QoS.

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5910 Determination of Effective Variables on Arachidonic Acid Production by Mortierella alpina CBS 754.68in Solid-State Fermentation using Plackett-Burman Screening Design

Authors: Z. Ghobadi, Z. Hamidi- Esfahani, M. H. Azizi

Abstract:

In the present study, the oleaginous fungus Mortierella alpina CBS 754.68 was screened for arachidonic acidproduction using inexpensive agricultural by-products as substrate. Four oilcakes were analysed to choose the best substrate among them. Sunflower oilcake was the most effective substrate for ARA production followed by soybean, colza and olive oilcakes. In the next step, seven variables including substrate particle size, moisture content, time, temperature, yeast extract supply, glucose supply and glutamate supply were surveyed and effective variables for ARA production were determined using a Plackett-Burman screening design. Analysis results showed that time (12 days), substrate particle size (1-1.4 mm) and temperature (20ºC) were the most effective variables for the highest level of ARA production respectively.

Keywords: Arachidonic acid, Mortierella alpine, Solid-statefermentation, Plackett-Burman design

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5909 In vitro Anti-tubercular Screening of Newly Synthesized Benzimidazole Derivatives

Authors: M. Shahar Yar, M. Mustaqeem Abdullah, Jaseela Majeed

Abstract:

A series of 1-(1H-benzimidazol-2-yl)-3-(substituted phenyl)-2-propen-1-one were allowed to react with hydrazine hydrate and phenyl hydrazine in submitted reactions to get pyrazoline and phenyl pyrazoline derivatives. All the compounds entered for screening at the Tuberculosis Antimicrobial Acquisition and Coordinating Facility (TAACF) for their in vitro antibacterial activity against Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Rv strain (ATCC 27294) using Microplate Alamar Blue Assay (MABA) susceptibility test. The results expressed as MIC (minimum inhibitory concentration) in μg/mL. Among the fifteen compounds, eight compounds were found to have MIC values less than 10 μg/mL. These were subjected for cytotoxicity assay in VERO cells to determine CC50 (cytotoxic concentration 50%) values and finally SI (Selectivity Index) were calculated. Compound (XV) 2-[5-(4- fluorophenyl)-1-phenyl-4,5-dihydro-1H-3-pyrazolyl]-1Hbenzimidazole was considered the best candidate of the series that could be a good starting point to develop new lead compounds in the fight against tuberculosis.

Keywords: anti-tubercular activity, benzimidazole, pyrazoline.

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5908 Performance Assessment of Computational Gridon Weather Indices from HOAPS Data

Authors: Madhuri Bhavsar, Anupam K Singh, Shrikant Pradhan

Abstract:

Long term rainfall analysis and prediction is a challenging task especially in the modern world where the impact of global warming is creating complications in environmental issues. These factors which are data intensive require high performance computational modeling for accurate prediction. This research paper describes a prototype which is designed and developed on grid environment using a number of coupled software infrastructural building blocks. This grid enabled system provides the demanding computational power, efficiency, resources, user-friendly interface, secured job submission and high throughput. The results obtained using sequential execution and grid enabled execution shows that computational performance has enhanced among 36% to 75%, for decade of climate parameters. Large variation in performance can be attributed to varying degree of computational resources available for job execution. Grid Computing enables the dynamic runtime selection, sharing and aggregation of distributed and autonomous resources which plays an important role not only in business, but also in scientific implications and social surroundings. This research paper attempts to explore the grid enabled computing capabilities on weather indices from HOAPS data for climate impact modeling and change detection.

Keywords: Climate model, Computational Grid, GridApplication, Heterogeneous Grid

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5907 Screen of MicroRNA Targets in Zebrafish Using Heterogeneous Data Sources: A Case Study for Dre-miR-10 and Dre-miR-196

Authors: Yanju Zhang, Joost M. Woltering, Fons J. Verbeek

Abstract:

It has been established that microRNAs (miRNAs) play an important role in gene expression by post-transcriptional regulation of messengerRNAs (mRNAs). However, the precise relationships between microRNAs and their target genes in sense of numbers, types and biological relevance remain largely unclear. Dissecting the miRNA-target relationships will render more insights for miRNA targets identification and validation therefore promote the understanding of miRNA function. In miRBase, miRanda is the key algorithm used for target prediction for Zebrafish. This algorithm is high-throughput but brings lots of false positives (noise). Since validation of a large scale of targets through laboratory experiments is very time consuming, several computational methods for miRNA targets validation should be developed. In this paper, we present an integrative method to investigate several aspects of the relationships between miRNAs and their targets with the final purpose of extracting high confident targets from miRanda predicted targets pool. This is achieved by using the techniques ranging from statistical tests to clustering and association rules. Our research focuses on Zebrafish. It was found that validated targets do not necessarily associate with the highest sequence matching. Besides, for some miRNA families, the frequency of their predicted targets is significantly higher in the genomic region nearby their own physical location. Finally, in a case study of dre-miR-10 and dre-miR-196, it was found that the predicted target genes hoxd13a, hoxd11a, hoxd10a and hoxc4a of dre-miR- 10 while hoxa9a, hoxc8a and hoxa13a of dre-miR-196 have similar characteristics as validated target genes and therefore represent high confidence target candidates.

Keywords: MicroRNA targets validation, microRNA-target relationships, dre-miR-10, dre-miR-196.

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5906 Phytochemical Profiles and Antioxidant Activity of Selected Indigenous Vegetables in Northern Mindanao, Philippines

Authors: Renee P. Baang, Romeo M. Del Rosario, Nenita D. Palmes

Abstract:

The crude methanol extracts of five indigenous vegetables namely, Amarathus tricolor, Basella rubra L., Chochurus olitorius L., Ipomea batatas, and Momordica chuchinensis L., were examined for their phytochemical profile and antioxidant activity using 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) free radical. The values for DPPH radical scavenging activity ranged from 7.6-89.53% with B. rubra and I. batatas having the lowest and highest values, respectively. The total flavonoid content of all five indigenous vegetables ranged from 74.65-277.3 mg quercetin equivalent per gram of dried vegetable material while the total phenolic content ranged from 1.93-6.15 mg gallic acid equivalent per gram dried material. Phytochemical screening revealed the presence of steroids, flavonoids, saponins, tannins, carbohydrates and reducing sugars, which may also be associated with the antioxidant activity shown by these indigenous vegetables.

Keywords: Antioxidant, DPPH radical scavenging activity, Philippine indigenous vegetables, phytochemical screening.

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5905 Efficient Pre-Processing of Single-Cell Assay for Transposase Accessible Chromatin with High-Throughput Sequencing Data

Authors: Fan Gao, Lior Pachter

Abstract:

The primary tool currently used to pre-process 10X chromium single-cell ATAC-seq data is Cell Ranger, which can take very long to run on standard datasets. To facilitate rapid pre-processing that enables reproducible workflows, we present a suite of tools called scATAK for pre-processing single-cell ATAC-seq data that is 15 to 18 times faster than Cell Ranger on mouse and human samples. Our tool can also calculate chromatin interaction potential matrices and generate open chromatin signal and interaction traces for cell groups. We use scATAK tool to explore the chromatin regulatory landscape of a healthy adult human brain and unveil cell-type specific features, and show that it provides a convenient and computational efficient approach for pre-processing single-cell ATAC-seq data.

Keywords: single-cell, ATAC-seq, bioinformatics, open chromatin landscape, chromatin interactome

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5904 A 10 Giga VPN Accelerator Board for Trust Channel Security System

Authors: Ki Hyun Kim, Jang-Hee Yoo, Kyo Il Chung

Abstract:

This paper proposes a VPN Accelerator Board (VPN-AB), a virtual private network (VPN) protocol designed for trust channel security system (TCSS). TCSS supports safety communication channel between security nodes in internet. It furnishes authentication, confidentiality, integrity, and access control to security node to transmit data packets with IPsec protocol. TCSS consists of internet key exchange block, security association block, and IPsec engine block. The internet key exchange block negotiates crypto algorithm and key used in IPsec engine block. Security Association blocks setting-up and manages security association information. IPsec engine block treats IPsec packets and consists of networking functions for communication. The IPsec engine block should be embodied by H/W and in-line mode transaction for high speed IPsec processing. Our VPN-AB is implemented with high speed security processor that supports many cryptographic algorithms and in-line mode. We evaluate a small TCSS communication environment, and measure a performance of VPN-AB in the environment. The experiment results show that VPN-AB gets a performance throughput of maximum 15.645Gbps when we set the IPsec protocol with 3DES-HMAC-MD5 tunnel mode.

Keywords: TCSS(Trust Channel Security System), VPN(VirtualPrivate Network), IPsec, SSL, Security Processor, Securitycommunication.

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5903 Emerging Wireless Standards - WiFi, ZigBee and WiMAX

Authors: Bhavneet Sidhu, Hardeep Singh, Amit Chhabra

Abstract:

The world of wireless telecommunications is rapidly evolving. Technologies under research and development promise to deliver more services to more users in less time. This paper presents the emerging technologies helping wireless systems grow from where we are today into our visions of the future. This paper will cover the applications and characteristics of emerging wireless technologies: Wireless Local Area Networks (WiFi-802.11n), Wireless Personal Area Networks (ZigBee) and Wireless Metropolitan Area Networks (WiMAX). The purpose of this paper is to explain the impending 802.11n standard and how it will enable WLANs to support emerging media-rich applications. The paper will also detail how 802.11n compares with existing WLAN standards and offer strategies for users considering higher-bandwidth alternatives. The emerging IEEE 802.15.4 (ZigBee) standard aims to provide low data rate wireless communications with high-precision ranging and localization, by employing UWB technologies for a low-power and low cost solution. WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) is a standard for wireless data transmission covering a range similar to cellular phone towers. With high performance in both distance and throughput, WiMAX technology could be a boon to current Internet providers seeking to become the leader of next generation wireless Internet access. This paper also explores how these emerging technologies differ from one another.

Keywords: MIMO technology, WiFi, WiMAX, ZigBee.

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5902 Hybrid Weighted Multiple Attribute Decision Making Handover Method for Heterogeneous Networks

Authors: Mohanad Alhabo, Li Zhang, Naveed Nawaz

Abstract:

Small cell deployment in 5G networks is a promising technology to enhance the capacity and coverage. However, unplanned deployment may cause high interference levels and high number of unnecessary handovers, which in turn result in an increase in the signalling overhead. To guarantee service continuity, minimize unnecessary handovers and reduce signalling overhead in heterogeneous networks, it is essential to properly model the handover decision problem. In this paper, we model the handover decision problem using Multiple Attribute Decision Making (MADM) method, specifically Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution (TOPSIS), and propose a hybrid TOPSIS method to control the handover in heterogeneous network. The proposed method adopts a hybrid weighting policy, which is a combination of entropy and standard deviation. A hybrid weighting control parameter is introduced to balance the impact of the standard deviation and entropy weighting on the network selection process and the overall performance. Our proposed method show better performance, in terms of the number of frequent handovers and the mean user throughput, compared to the existing methods.

Keywords: Handover, HetNets, interference, MADM, small cells, TOPSIS, weight.

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5901 Development and Optimization of Automated Dry-Wafer Separation

Authors: Tim Giesen, Christian Fischmann, Fabian Böttinger, Alexander Ehm, Alexander Verl

Abstract:

In a state-of-the-art industrial production line of photovoltaic products the handling and automation processes are of particular importance and implication. While processing a fully functional crystalline solar cell an as-cut photovoltaic wafer is subject to numerous repeated handling steps. With respect to stronger requirements in productivity and decreasing rejections due to defects the mechanical stress on the thin wafers has to be reduced to a minimum as the fragility increases by decreasing wafer thicknesses. In relation to the increasing wafer fragility, researches at the Fraunhofer Institutes IPA and CSP showed a negative correlation between multiple handling processes and the wafer integrity. Recent work therefore focused on the analysis and optimization of the dry wafer stack separation process with compressed air. The achievement of a wafer sensitive process capability and a high production throughput rate is the basic motivation in this research.

Keywords: Automation, Photovoltaic Manufacturing, Thin Wafer, Material Handling

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5900 Performance Evaluation of an Efficient Asynchronous Protocol for WDM Ring MANs

Authors: Peristera A. Baziana

Abstract:

The idea of the asynchronous transmission in wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) ring MANs is studied in this paper. Especially, we present an efficient access technique to coordinate the collisions-free transmission of the variable sizes of IP traffic in WDM ring core networks. Each node is equipped with a tunable transmitter and a tunable receiver. In this way, all the wavelengths are exploited for both transmission and reception. In order to evaluate the performance measures of average throughput, queuing delay and packet dropping probability at the buffers, a simulation model that assumes symmetric access rights among the nodes is developed based on Poisson statistics. Extensive numerical results show that the proposed protocol achieves apart from high bandwidth exploitation for a wide range of offered load, fairness of queuing delay and dropping events among the different packets size categories.

Keywords: Asynchronous transmission, collision avoidance, wavelength division multiplexing.

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5899 Multipath Routing Protocol Using Basic Reconstruction Routing (BRR) Algorithm in Wireless Sensor Network

Authors: K. Rajasekaran, Kannan Balasubramanian

Abstract:

A sensory network consists of multiple detection locations called sensor nodes, each of which is tiny, featherweight and portable. A single path routing protocols in wireless sensor network can lead to holes in the network, since only the nodes present in the single path is used for the data transmission. Apart from the advantages like reduced computation, complexity and resource utilization, there are some drawbacks like throughput, increased traffic load and delay in data delivery. Therefore, multipath routing protocols are preferred for WSN. Distributing the traffic among multiple paths increases the network lifetime. We propose a scheme, for the data to be transmitted through a dominant path to save energy. In order to obtain a high delivery ratio, a basic route reconstruction protocol is utilized to reconstruct the path whenever a failure is detected. A basic reconstruction routing (BRR) algorithm is proposed, in which a node can leap over path failure by using the already existing routing information from its neighbourhood while the composed data is transmitted from the source to the sink. In order to save the energy and attain high data delivery ratio, data is transmitted along a multiple path, which is achieved by BRR algorithm whenever a failure is detected. Further, the analysis of how the proposed protocol overcomes the drawback of the existing protocols is presented. The performance of our protocol is compared to AOMDV and energy efficient node-disjoint multipath routing protocol (EENDMRP). The system is implemented using NS-2.34. The simulation results show that the proposed protocol has high delivery ratio with low energy consumption.

Keywords: Multipath routing, WSN, energy efficient routing, alternate route, assured data delivery.

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5898 Gene Selection Guided by Feature Interdependence

Authors: Hung-Ming Lai, Andreas Albrecht, Kathleen Steinhöfel

Abstract:

Cancers could normally be marked by a number of differentially expressed genes which show enormous potential as biomarkers for a certain disease. Recent years, cancer classification based on the investigation of gene expression profiles derived by high-throughput microarrays has widely been used. The selection of discriminative genes is, therefore, an essential preprocess step in carcinogenesis studies. In this paper, we have proposed a novel gene selector using information-theoretic measures for biological discovery. This multivariate filter is a four-stage framework through the analyses of feature relevance, feature interdependence, feature redundancy-dependence and subset rankings, and having been examined on the colon cancer data set. Our experimental result show that the proposed method outperformed other information theorem based filters in all aspect of classification errors and classification performance.

Keywords: Colon cancer, feature interdependence, feature subset selection, gene selection, microarray data analysis.

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5897 Relay Node Selection Algorithm for Cooperative Communications in Wireless Networks

Authors: Sunmyeng Kim

Abstract:

IEEE 802.11a/b/g standards support multiple transmission rates. Even though the use of multiple transmission rates increase the WLAN capacity, this feature leads to the performance anomaly problem. Cooperative communication was introduced to relieve the performance anomaly problem. Data packets are delivered to the destination much faster through a relay node with high rate than through direct transmission to the destination at low rate. In the legacy cooperative protocols, a source node chooses a relay node only based on the transmission rate. Therefore, they are not so feasible in multi-flow environments since they do not consider the effect of other flows. To alleviate the effect, we propose a new relay node selection algorithm based on the transmission rate and channel contention level. Performance evaluation is conducted using simulation, and shows that the proposed protocol significantly outperforms the previous protocol in terms of throughput and delay.

Keywords: Cooperative communications, MAC protocol, Relay node, WLAN.

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5896 Battery Energy Storage System Economic Benefits Assessment on a Network Frequency Control

Authors: Kréhi Serge Agbli, Samuel Portebos, Michaël Salomon

Abstract:

Here a methodology is considered aiming at evaluating the economic benefit of the provision of a primary frequency control unit using a Battery Energy Storage System (BESS). In this methodology, two control types (basic and hysteresis) are implemented and the corresponding minimum energy storage system power allowing to maintain the frequency drop inside a given threshold under a given contingency is identified and compared using DigSilent’s PowerFactory software. Following this step, the corresponding energy storage capacity (in MWh) is calculated. As PowerFactory is dedicated to dynamic simulation for transient analysis, a first order model related to the IEEE 9 bus grid used for the analysis under PowerFactory is characterized and implemented on MATLAB-Simulink. Primary frequency control is simulated using the two control types over one-month grid's frequency deviation data on this Simulink model. This simulation results in the energy throughput both basic and hysteresis BESSs. It emerges that the 15 minutes operation band of the battery capacity allocated to frequency control is sufficient under the considered disturbances. A sensitivity analysis on the width of the control deadband is then performed for the two control types. The deadband width variation leads to an identical sizing with the hysteresis control showing a better frequency control at the cost of a higher delivered throughput compared to the basic control. An economic analysis comparing the cost of the sized BESS to the potential revenues is then performed.

Keywords: Battery Energy Storage System, electrical network frequency stability, frequency control unit, PowerFactory.

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5895 Production of Eicosapentaenoic Acid and Fucoxanthin in Cold-Tolerant Diatom Strains

Authors: Nga Phuong Dang, Terje Vasskog, Ashwiny Pandey, Rajnish Kaur Calay

Abstract:

Diatoms hold great potential for nutraceutical production as they are source of high value products such as eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and pigment fucoxanthin. EPA has proven human health benefits, and fucoxanthin can be used as both medicinal and nutritional ingredient to prevent and treat chronic diseases. The economic perspective of commercial production of a single product from microalgae is not attractive due to the high production cost. To improve the economic viability, we explore the concept of combining the production of both EPA and fucoxanthin in a single process. In our current study, we isolated twelve new microalgae isolates from Ofotfjord. Eight of them are diatoms and 4 of them are cyanobacteria and microalgae. Screening the new diatom isolates revealed that two strains are cold-tolerant diatom which can grow at 10 °C. They accumulated significant amount of lipid, which was up to 40-60% of the dried mass. The EPA contents from the two strains ranged from 15-19% of the total fatty acid, while fucoxanthin concentrations were between 1-1.4% of the dried biomass. Comparing with other studied diatom, this is promising result. The two strains hold promise as source for EPA and fucoxanthin production.

Keywords: Microalgae, fucoxanthin, eicosapentaenoic acid, diatom, fatty acid.

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5894 Multidimensional Visualization Tools for Analysis of Expression Data

Authors: Urska Cvek, Marjan Trutschl, Randolph Stone II, Zanobia Syed, John L. Clifford, Anita L. Sabichi

Abstract:

Expression data analysis is based mostly on the statistical approaches that are indispensable for the study of biological systems. Large amounts of multidimensional data resulting from the high-throughput technologies are not completely served by biostatistical techniques and are usually complemented with visual, knowledge discovery and other computational tools. In many cases, in biological systems we only speculate on the processes that are causing the changes, and it is the visual explorative analysis of data during which a hypothesis is formed. We would like to show the usability of multidimensional visualization tools and promote their use in life sciences. We survey and show some of the multidimensional visualization tools in the process of data exploration, such as parallel coordinates and radviz and we extend them by combining them with the self-organizing map algorithm. We use a time course data set of transitional cell carcinoma of the bladder in our examples. Analysis of data with these tools has the potential to uncover additional relationships and non-trivial structures.

Keywords: microarrays, visualization, parallel coordinates, radviz, self-organizing maps.

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5893 Enhancement of Rice Straw Composting Using UV Induced Mutants of Penicillium Strain

Authors: T. N. M. El Sebai, A. A.Khattab, Wafaa M. Abd-El Rahim, H. Moawad

Abstract:

Fungal mutant strains have produced cellulase and xylanase enzymes, and have induced high hydrolysis with enhanced of rice straw. The mutants were obtained by exposing Penicillium strain to UV-light treatments. Screening and selection after treatment with UV-light were carried out using cellulolytic and xylanolytic clear zones method to select the hypercellulolytic and hyperxylanolytic mutants. These mutants were evaluated for their cellulase and xylanase enzyme production as well as their abilities for biodegradation of rice straw. The mutant 12 UV/1 produced 306.21% and 209.91% cellulase and xylanase, respectively, as compared with the original wild type strain. This mutant showed high capacity of rice straw degradation. The effectiveness of tested mutant strain and that of wild strain was compared in relation to enhancing the composting process of rice straw and animal manures mixture. The results obtained showed that the compost product of inoculated mixture with mutant strain (12 UV/1) was the best compared to the wild strain and un-inoculated mixture. Analysis of the composted materials showed that the characteristics of the produced compost were close to those of the high quality standard compost. The results obtained in the present work suggest that the combination between rice straw and animal manure could be used for enhancing the composting process of rice straw and particularly when applied with fungal decomposer accelerating the composting process.

Keywords: Rice straw, composting, UV mutants, Penicillium.

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5892 Investigation on Novel Based Naturally-Inspired Swarm Intelligence Algorithms for Optimization Problems in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Authors: C. Rajan, K. Geetha, C. Rasi Priya, S. Geetha

Abstract:

Nature is the immense gifted source for solving complex problems. It always helps to find the optimal solution to solve the problem. Mobile Ad Hoc NETwork (MANET) is a wide research area of networks which has set of independent nodes. The characteristics involved in MANET’s are Dynamic, does not depend on any fixed infrastructure or centralized networks, High mobility. The Bio-Inspired algorithms are mimics the nature for solving optimization problems opening a new era in MANET. The typical Swarm Intelligence (SI) algorithms are Ant Colony Optimization (ACO), Artificial Bee Colony (ABC), Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), Modified Termite Algorithm, Bat Algorithm (BA), Wolf Search Algorithm (WSA) and so on. This work mainly concentrated on nature of MANET and behavior of nodes. Also it analyses various performance metrics such as throughput, QoS and End-to-End delay etc.

Keywords: Ant Colony Algorithm, Artificial Bee Colony algorithm, Bio-Inspired algorithm, Modified Termite Algorithm.

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5891 Decision Support System for Hospital Selection in Emergency Medical Services: A Discrete Event Simulation Approach

Authors: D. Tedesco, G. Feletti, P. Trucco

Abstract:

The present study aims to develop a Decision Support System (DSS) to support operational decisions in Emergency Medical Service (EMS) systems regarding the assignment of medical emergency requests to Emergency Departments (ED). This problem is called “hospital selection” and concerns the definition of policies for the selection of the ED to which patients who require further treatment are transported by ambulance. The employed research methodology consists of a first phase of review of the technical-scientific literature concerning DSSs to support the EMS management and, in particular, the hospital selection decision. From the literature analysis, it emerged that current studies mainly focused on the EMS phases related to the ambulance service and consider a process that ends when the ambulance is available after completing a mission. Therefore, all the ED-related issues are excluded and considered as part of a separate process. Indeed, the most studied hospital selection policy turned out to be proximity, thus allowing to minimize the travelling time and to free-up the ambulance in the shortest possible time. The purpose of the present study consists in developing an optimization model for assigning medical emergency requests to the EDs also considering the expected time performance in the subsequent phases of the process, such as the case mix, the expected service throughput times, and the operational capacity of different EDs in hospitals. To this end, a Discrete Event Simulation (DES) model was created to compare different hospital selection policies. The model was implemented with the AnyLogic software and finally validated on a realistic case. The hospital selection policy that returned the best results was the minimization of the Time To Provider (TTP), considered as the time from the beginning of the ambulance journey to the ED at the beginning of the clinical evaluation by the doctor. Finally, two approaches were further compared: a static approach, based on a retrospective estimation of the TTP, and a dynamic approach, focused on a predictive estimation of the TTP which is determined with a constantly updated Winters forecasting model. Findings reveal that considering the minimization of TTP is the best hospital selection policy. It allows to significantly reducing service throughput times in the ED with a negligible increase in travel time. Furthermore, an immediate view of the saturation state of the ED is produced and the case mix present in the ED structures (i.e., the different triage codes) is considered, as different severity codes correspond to different service throughput times. Besides, the use of a predictive approach is certainly more reliable in terms on TTP estimation, than a retrospective approach. These considerations can support decision-makers in introducing different hospital selection policies to enhance EMSs performance.

Keywords: Emergency medical services, hospital selection, discrete event simulation, forecast model.

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5890 A Novel Approach to Allocate Channels Dynamically in Wireless Mesh Networks

Authors: Y. Harold Robinson, M. Rajaram

Abstract:

Wireless mesh networking is rapidly gaining in popularity with a variety of users: from municipalities to enterprises, from telecom service providers to public safety and military organizations. This increasing popularity is based on two basic facts: ease of deployment and increase in network capacity expressed in bandwidth per footage; WMNs do not rely on any fixed infrastructure. Many efforts have been used to maximizing throughput of the network in a multi-channel multi-radio wireless mesh network. Current approaches are purely based on either static or dynamic channel allocation approaches. In this paper, we use a hybrid multichannel multi radio wireless mesh networking architecture, where static and dynamic interfaces are built in the nodes. Dynamic Adaptive Channel Allocation protocol (DACA), it considers optimization for both throughput and delay in the channel allocation. The assignment of the channel has been allocated to be codependent with the routing problem in the wireless mesh network and that should be based on passage flow on every link. Temporal and spatial relationship rises to re compute the channel assignment every time when the pattern changes in mesh network, channel assignment algorithms assign channels in network. In this paper a computing path which captures the available path bandwidth is the proposed information and the proficient routing protocol based on the new path which provides both static and dynamic links. The consistency property guarantees that each node makes an appropriate packet forwarding decision and balancing the control usage of the network, so that a data packet will traverse through the right path.

Keywords: Wireless mesh network, spatial time division multiple access, hybrid topology, timeslot allocation.

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5889 Colorectal Cancer Screening by a CEACAM-6 Immunosensor

Authors: C. T. S. Ching, P. W. C hen, T. P. Sun, H. L. Shieh

Abstract:

The biomarker for colorectal cancer (CRC) is CEACAM-6 antigen (C6AG). Therefore, this study aims to develop a novel, simple and low-cost CEACAM-6 antigen immumosensor (C6AG-IMS), based on electrical impedance measurement, for precise determination of C6AG. A low-cost screen-printed graphite electrode was constructed and used as the sensor, with CEACAM-6 antibody (C6AB) immobilized on it. The procedures of sensor fabrication and antibody immobilization are simple and low-cost. Measurement of the electrical impedance at a definite frequency ranges (0.43 – 1.26 MHz) showed that the C6AG-IMS has an excellent linear (r2>0.9) response range (8.125 – 65 pg/mL), covering the normal physiological and pathological ranges of blood C6AG levels. Also, the C6AG-IMS has excellent reliability and validity, with the intraclass correlation coefficient being 0.97. In conclusion, a novel, simple, low-cost and reliable C6AG-IMS was designed and developed, being able to accurately determine blood C6AG levels in the range of pathological and normal physiological regions. The C6AG-IMS can provide a point-of-care and immediate screening results to the user at home.

Keywords: Colorectal Cancer, Immunosensor, Electrical Impedance, CEACAM-6, Measurement, Point-of-Care

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5888 Industrial Compressor Anti-Surge Computer Control

Authors: Ventzas Dimitrios, Petropoulos George

Abstract:

The paper presents a compressor anti-surge control system, that results in maximizing compressor throughput with pressure standard deviation reduction, increased safety margin between design point and surge limit line and avoiding possible machine surge. Alternative control strategies are presented.

Keywords: Anti-surge, control, compressor, PID control, safety, fault tolerance, start-up, ESD.

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5887 Design of a Telemetry, Tracking, and Command Radio-Frequency Receiver for Small Satellites Based on Commercial Off-The-Shelf Components

Authors: A. Lovascio, A. D’Orazio, V. Centonze

Abstract:

From several years till now the aerospace industry is developing more and more small satellites for Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) missions. Such satellites have a low cost of making and launching since they have a size and weight smaller than other types of satellites. However, because of size limitations, small satellites need integrated electronic equipment based on digital logic. Moreover, the LEOs require telecommunication modules with high throughput to transmit to earth a big amount of data in a short time. In order to meet such requirements, in this paper we propose a Telemetry, Tracking & Command module optimized through the use of the Commercial Off-The-Shelf components. The proposed approach exploits the major flexibility offered by these components in reducing costs and optimizing the performance. The method has been applied in detail for the design of the front-end receiver, which has a low noise figure (1.5 dB) and DC power consumption (smaller than 2 W). Such a performance is particularly attractive since it allows fulfilling the energy budget stringent constraints that are typical for LEO small platforms.

Keywords: COTS, small satellites, sub-sampling, TT&C.

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5886 SIMGraph: Simplifying Contig Graph to Improve de Novo Genome Assembly Using Next-generation Sequencing Data

Authors: Chien-Ju Li, Chun-Hui Yu, Chi-Chuan Hwang, Tsunglin Liu , Darby Tien-Hao Chang

Abstract:

De novo genome assembly is always fragmented. Assembly fragmentation is more serious using the popular next generation sequencing (NGS) data because NGS sequences are shorter than the traditional Sanger sequences. As the data throughput of NGS is high, the fragmentations in assemblies are usually not the result of missing data. On the contrary, the assembled sequences, called contigs, are often connected to more than one other contigs in a complicated manner, leading to the fragmentations. False connections in such complicated connections between contigs, named a contig graph, are inevitable because of repeats and sequencing/assembly errors. Simplifying a contig graph by removing false connections directly improves genome assembly. In this work, we have developed a tool, SIMGraph, to resolve ambiguous connections between contigs using NGS data. Applying SIMGraph to the assembly of a fungus and a fish genome, we resolved 27.6% and 60.3% ambiguous contig connections, respectively. These results can reduce the experimental efforts in resolving contig connections.

Keywords: Contig graph, NGS, de novo assembly, scaffold.

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5885 Towards a Load Balancing Framework for an SMS–Based Service Invocation Environment

Authors: Mandla T. Nene, Edgar.Jembere, Matthew O. Adigun, Themba Shezi, Siyabonga S. Cebekhulu

Abstract:

The drastic increase in the usage of SMS technology has led service providers to seek for a solution that enable users of mobile devices to access services through SMSs. This has resulted in the proposal of solutions towards SMS-based service invocation in service oriented environments. However, the dynamic nature of service-oriented environments coupled with sudden load peaks generated by service request, poses performance challenges to infrastructures for supporting SMS-based service invocation. To address this problem we adopt load balancing techniques. A load balancing model with adaptive load balancing and load monitoring mechanisms as its key constructs is proposed. The load balancing model then led to realization of Least Loaded Load Balancing Framework (LLLBF). Evaluation of LLLBF benchmarked with round robin (RR) scheme on the queuing approach showed LLLBF outperformed RR in terms of response time and throughput. However, LLLBF achieved better result in the cost of high processing power.

Keywords: SMS (Short Message Service), LLLBF (Least Loaded Load Balancing Framework), Service Oriented Computing (SOC).

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